I was not familiar with this name....I see this whiskey pioneer family was there from the beginning and was successful and eventually moved out to Weston, MO....where their former distillery is now operated by others as McCormick.

"1908 George sold his Weston distillery facility and the Shawhan brand name, but absent the family formula, to the Singer family. The Singers purchased the McCormick name from the McCormick family, which owned a distillery but had abandoned plans to continue making whiskey. The Singers resumed production after the end of Prohibition, using the original McCormick recipe. They later sold the facility and the whiskey aging in the warehouses, in 1947, to Dr. Armand Hammer of United Distillers; he did not continue production. In 1951 the Cray family bought the facilities and production was under way again.

Note: In 1998, the Weston, MO location is still known as the McCormick Distillery. Private investors presently own it; employees also have a financial interest in the ownership. The distilling facility itself has not been in operation since the 1980s; McCormick obtains its whiskey from other distiller suppliers. There was a time when the McCormick Distillery was well known for its ceramic whiskey containers, featuring such popular figurines as one of Elvis Presley."

> I wonder who has the family formula and will it resurface?

"A list of recommendations and advice from the Shawhan distillery states "Good whiskey is a product which is naturally and necessarily pure, sterile, and antiseptic. Every physician prescribes it. No household should be without it."

"Shawhan, however, concluded his advice on liquor consumption with "Don't let whiskey get the best of you get the best of whiskey. Shawhan is the best of whiskey."

cowdery

11-17-2008, 22:15

The last actual Shawhan in the business was George Henry Shawhan, who died in 1912. He had sold the Weston (McCormick) place in 1908, after which he bought another distillery in Verona, Missouri, which he ran until he died. After that it was just a name, behind which Kansas City political boss Tom Pendergast operated at one time. The distillery called Shawhan in Bardstown was also, perhaps more famously, known as Waterfill & Frazier, but that name moved around too. Beam owns the Bardstown site today and uses the warehouses. It's over by the new Tom Pig Restaurant.